The Dusk Hours
by Angel Gidget
Summary: Jem/Tessa. Post CP2. Nothing matters except where they are right now and who they are with tonight: each other.


**A/N:** Posting from my tumblr writings again. This is probably my steamiest to date, though I certainly owe smexytimes-writing to at least a couple friends by this point. Enjoy, guys.

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Her mouth descends on the point above this throat, where he has always rested his violin. He first feels her gentle lips, then her insistent tongue, and finally, her teeth. Jem doesn't even recognize the sound that wrenches out of his lungs. He knows that it faintly resembles the phrase, "Tessa… oh, please…" and, "More."

When he can finally kiss her again, he tastes a mixture of wine and tangelo and breathes through it, allowing his hands to travel her sides. The skirt of her dress is short, decadently short, and he recalls the way she smiled for him when she came down the steps into their hotel lobby, ready for dinner.

When she pulls back, they both breathe and he can finally see her eyes, only partially obscured by the tangle of curls fallen about her face.

There is a question she wants to ask him, but she does not want to ask him because they are still learning one another, and she knows that at times so much, too much, is new to him.

His hands lie still along the backs of her thighs and in that moment, he remembers another night, over a hundred years prior, when his hands trembled over the same place and his lips sought out her shoulder in his bed. Any other day, it would seem long ago. But it is tonight, and he feels like that boy again, shaking and wanting and so terribly, painfully in love.

Tessa leans forward, gentle and purposeful, "May I?"

Jem does not know if the feeling is irony or appropriate certainty that takes him when he nods his head. For all his fantasies—the ones he had when they were expected and the ones he had when he should not have been capable of having any at all—he knows that he is not the one so familiar with the next step.

So he breathes, and rather that try to move his hands, allows them to caress her skin where they lay. He watches her own hand work at the button of his jeans and slide inward, cupping and stroking. He feels all breath leave him, and his blood swirl.

She is beautiful braced above him. The moonlight through the window makes the wayward strands of hair cast tiny shadow lines along her face, but they do not hide her wide gray eyes and the gravity inside them.

Where every movement seemed fast a moment before, it slows to a sigh.

His shirt hangs open, and he does not miss the way her gaze travels over his faded runes, the flesh made whole again by the hand of heaven.

"I came so close to losing you," Tessa's whisper over him stirs his skin to goosebumps, "When I saw you on the bridge… I thought… I couldn't think. I stood there so amazed and thunderstruck that you were restored that I could barely fathom what you were telling me. And then you turned around, and were nearly gone from me. And it would have been all my fault."

"Tessa—" Her kiss is nearly bruising, and he can feel the ache behind it.

He frees one hand from her legs to cup her face, letting his thumb caress her cheek.

He feels her calm, and when she pulls back, she smiles for him.

Though the smile begins small and tight and true, her lashes lower, and it slides into more of a grin, as they both grow more aware of the here and the now.

But Angel, she still has her hand on him, and it rips his mental faculties to shreds.

His neck tilts back into the pillows as her fingers begin to waltz once more.

"Wǒ xūyào nǐ."

He reaches around, searching for the subtle line that holds her dress together, fumbling for the infinitesimal piece of plastic.

He pulls, and the zip of it resounds in his ears.

There is no lengthy set of corset strings to stop him. No petticoats, no chemise. In their place, a tiny set of hooks on a thin strap that require nothing more than the pinch of his fingers.

At once, it is undone, and his hand spreads over the bare expanse of her back, warm and smooth.

He doesn't like that her hands have to leave his person for the dress to come off. He loathes the fact entirely, but when her dress and his shirt and denim are on the floor, his hands fly to her back once more, pulling her, and they are turning.

He loves the sound of her exhale as her hair falls back against the pale sheets. He loves the way she looks up at him, smiling and panting. He loves the feel of her legs embracing him as readily as her arms, and as he reaches between them, he can feel the slickness of her skin.

Jem knows that some men wait a lifetime for a moment such as this, with a person who feels their souls such as this. And some men find it early on, only to die soon after. Sometimes Jem feels as if he has taken both roads at once and split himself in the process.

But his blood surges with the force of a pulse unhindered by drug or weakness. Eyes the color of storm clouds follow his movements behind fluttering eyelashes. And gentle hands reach up to the faded scars that once made him something other than human and gingerly graze them before descending to his lips.

Her breath is halting but clear, "Xiànzài."

Now. Return to the now.

His hand reaches down between them only to feel her own hand cover his. And as their eyes are locked, so their bodies follow suit.

Everything about Tessa is supple strength, and warmth, and home.

He hears her sigh give way to a beautifully obscene moan, and his own lips part under her fingertips.

He tries not to move, to be considerate and offer her time to adjust, but Tessa's hips maneuver in a wave, to tell him his resistance is unnecessary.

And then, all at once, he cannot stop.

Slick heat, tighter and tighter.

Not simply where they are joined, but all over.

Even with the full strength of the nephilim returned to him, his arms fail him as he collapses forward, his face buried against her shoulder.

Even after all these years, she still smells ever so faintly of the violet water she used as a girl. The same scent that drove him mad when the only time she touched him was to check the extent of his fever with her open palm.

The sensation of falling and combusting like one of Henry's engines grips him with a sudden force and a burst of light behind his eyes. His arms tighten unthinkingly around Tessa, so much so, that he can almost hear her gasp for air over the roar in his ears.

It's the feeling of butter and honey sliding under his skin, unlocking every muscle in his back, his arms, his legs, momentarily wringing the strength out of his bones in the most wondrous way.

Like waking from a dream, Jem feels his mind roused from the all-consuming pleasure by a series of small ones.

Tessa's fingernails scratching at his scalp.

Her toes sliding along his calf.

Her bosom pressed against his collarbone, along the line of a precision rune.

He pauses before raising his eyes.

"You didn't—"

He doesn't know how he only manages to blush now, rather than in the midst of what they were doing… before…but…

Tessa smiles.

"Not yet."

She takes his hand in hers,entwining their fingers. Twin bands of gold glint in the low light. They are mundane symbols of engagement and devotion, but it seemed fitting for their new lives, which are half-spent in that world regardless.

She leads him down to where her legs are still opened for him, where their inner thighs are slicked from ardor, and shows him where to place his fingers, teaches him the firm circular motions that work. It is only moments until he needs no guidance at all.

"Jem…"

It is his name cried out merely for the sake of it. He knows he must have heard her say it before, but it is different now. For now, the word is grit through her teeth, forced through on a ragged breath. He watches pink blossom into red under her cheeks, and extend to her chest.

Tessa's head tosses, and her back arches. With no further prompting, Jem leans forward, closing his mouth over the tip of her breast. The scratching at his scalp breaks into a firm clutch.

The salt of sweat gathers on his tongue as he presses his hips to the sheets. His body could harden all over again from the sound of her voice alone.

But all at once, her words stop as if choked. Her body seems to pulsate underneath his thumb and her every limb jerks as if burned. The clutch at his hair becomes an almost brutal yank as her heart stutters beneath his mouth.

Her body seems to unfurl like a series of tired petals, and in the moment, he wants only to kiss her. Tiny, adoring kisses scattered over her cheeks, her eyelids, her collarbone, her shoulders. It is only when he reaches her lips that she seems to waken from her her phantasmagorical state, and kisses back.

They kiss as if their mouths were strangers, learning the ways of the other for the first time, gently and carefully.

After long moments of it, Tessa pulls back, twisting her body over, reaching for the night-stand.

She is sharp and thoughtful, pulling out a cloth already water-damp.

Jem extends his hand, "Allow me."

He passes it over their thighs, their groins, and his own stomach.

When he finally stretches out to sleep beside her, Tessa's eyes are already closed.

He allows the night to take them both, but only when the purest of smiles reaches across her face.

Only when he knows her dreams are bright.

_f.i.n_


End file.
